


The Ticking of Eternity

by PassionObsessed



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Disassociation, Discussions of death, Hopeful Ending, Immortality, Immortality Issues (Shadowhunter Chronicles), M/M, Mortality, Oceans, Poetry, Secrets, Sort Of, Time - Freeform, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29687115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PassionObsessed/pseuds/PassionObsessed
Summary: "Warlocks die in one of two ways, darling. We are either killed or we fade. The warlocks I knew when I was young are gone now. One day we just stop hearing from them and we know that they are lost to us and we mourn. We are immortal but not eternal.”Magnus feels the weight of time and his long life. He and Alec talk about it.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This fic is set in a nebulous time period after Malec's breakup and subsequent makeup in season 2 and when Magnus loses his magic in season 3. 
> 
> 2\. The second chapter is a poem that is a companion to this piece. It's by one of my favorite poets, Edna St. Vincent Millay, who wrote in the early 20th century. I thought of it often when I wrote this. The title, the first two lines, and the last line of this fic all come from her poem, "Renascence." 
> 
> 3\. I also listened to KT Tunstall's "Universe and U," while writing. 
> 
> 4\. Please leave constructive criticism if you want! This is different from any of my other works and I want to know how well it come across and what it makes you feel.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading.

**_I screamed, and—lo!—Infinity_ **

**_Came down and settled over me;_ **

Magnus opens his eyes and thinks, _Oh_. 

The room is quiet. He can feel the bed underneath him, sheets on naked skin, barely. He blinks slowly. He feels everything, barely. Or he feels everything, completely. He never really knows which it is.

He twitches a finger. It takes concentration. A fire message draws itself into the air and then flicks away. He closes his eyes.

A moment, an eternity, a time - later, he opens them again. A thought is there. A word. A name. With immense effort, he moves his finger again. A second fire message comes. It goes. He closes his eyes.

***

There is a sound. His eyes drift open, blink. There is a face in front of him. Dark hair, pale skin. A name sparks. He waits for it to come closer. It does, finally. _Alexander_. 

He breathes out, a long exhalation. Distantly, some emotion quivers. He tries to catch it but it fades out again. He blinks, eyelashes heavier than stone. The face is still there.

“Ah. I got Catarina’s message. It was a bit cryptic; it just said that you would be away for a few days and to stay at the Institute. I only came back for a few things. And I found you.” 

The words are muffled, drowning in the air, rippling their way across his skin and sinking into the well inside him. The face doesn’t move. 

There is warmth, suddenly. A hand, touching the mantle of himself, tectonic plates crashing underwater. 

“Magnus. Can you blink for me? I want to ask you a question. Can you do that, sweetheart? Can you blink for me?”

The words sink like rocks into his chest, plummeting down the dark shaft inside him. They fall, endlessly. But then the name burbles back up, unexpectedly. _Alexander_.

He blinks.

“Okay, Magnus. Thank you. One more time for me, darling. Can I stay with you? I won’t talk. But I’d like to stay. Can you blink again for me?”

Time passes. Maybe. A bubble is rising, trapped emotion from the sea inside him surfacing slowly, slowly. It breaks apart.

He blinks.

A sound again, a sigh, whistling him right back inside and he lets himself follow it down and down until he dissipates. 

***

There are mountains inside him now, the ocean boiled away. They raise him up on jagged peaks and thrust him towards the sky, towards a different expanse, no less deep than the sea that came before. He is rock and stone, immovable and solid. The winds come and the rains start, melting him back, wearing him away, flake by flake.

He drifts. 

***

He is worn down, and the waters caress him again. A whisper brushes over him, tendrils of sound slithering over him and away again.

“I love you, Magnus. I’ll be back later.” 

He swirls around on the sea. A touch on his eyes, a mouth’s fleeting kiss.

He drifts.

***

He blinks. There are sounds again. A presence, displaced air, moving, shifting the currents around him. A name. _Alexander_. There is a weight on the bed, his ocean rocks with it. 

Sandalwood floats over, pleasant and profound. It settles over him and pulls, gently. An anchor, dragging in the sand at the very bottom of himself.

Sound again, over and over. The same sound, soft, a susurration. Snores. There is movement on his mouth, a tugging of his lips, upwards. 

He drifts.

***

He feels. Blinks. Water? There is water on him, on his skin. Sandalwood, stronger, fragrant, the anchor’s hooks digging deeper. He bobs in the sea, arrested. 

Water. _Alexander_. He is being washed. His lips part on an inhale. Rough pebbles - a cloth - on the shell of him, cool air rushing behind each stroke, an ocean breeze. It lasts a millenia.

He drifts closer to himself.

***

Magnus opens his eyes.

***

Magnus shifts, letting muscles readjust to motion, achy and slow. He blinks rapidly, his glamour rising automatically, as he tries to reacclimate to the living world. 

The room is dark, the night sounds of Brooklyn humming softly outside the bedroom window. There is another body in the room, a presence that Magnus’ senses register as familiar and comforting. Magnus turns to look beside him. 

Alec is sitting up in bed, bare-chested, a tablet in his lap, his brow furrowed as he concentrates. His fingers tap quickly on the screen, long fingers elegant and strong. The glow of the lamp casts shadows on his face, here the dark well of his eye socket, there a bright line carving out his nose. His mouth is a work of art that Michelangelo couldn’t approach, his jawline beyond Bernini. He is beautiful. 

The sound Magnus makes is involuntary, something low and disbelieving. 

Alec looks over, startled, and then smiles softly at him. “Oh. You’re back.” He puts the tablet on the bedside table next to him, and then sinks down into the bed, facing Magnus. Alec fusses with the covers, getting himself all arranged and tucked in, like a normal night, like he hasn’t just seen Magnus stare into the void inside himself and disappear for days. 

Magnus is afraid. He has no words yet; he lets himself linger on the familiar planes of Alec’s face. He looks tired but otherwise no different. And he’s here. Here in Magnus’ bed, where he’s stayed for the past… however long it’s been. However long he was away.

“I love you.” The words spill out, past the fear, past the wonder of Alec’s presence. It seems important that these are his first words. 

Alec’s smile is a thing of immeasurable beauty. “I love you too, Magnus. I missed you.”

Magnus shifts restlessly. “I’m sorry. I had thought Catarina would have… I’m not sure, actually. Just thought that you wouldn’t have seen me like this.” He waves a hand in the air, then stops and peers at it. His fingers are bare, all of his rings removed.

It’s Alec’s turn to shift. “I took them off when I bathed you. I hope that's okay. Catarina was, um, less than pleased that I was here, but she let me know that it was all right to touch you and to call her if you were gone for more than a week. And that you were fine and would come back.”

“How long was I out?”

“Five days. I went to the Institute like normal but came back every night. It’s been quiet. Nothing unusual that we would have needed a warlock for.” Alec’s voice has slipped into his Head of the Institute tone by the end, a touch of authority and power that never fails to thrill Magnus.

The room is quiet again when Alec stops speaking. Magnus watches Alec’s face. There is nothing but contentment in its angles and lines, a simple happiness based in a warm bed and Magnus beside him. Alec’s eyes are soft and sleepy, his muscles relaxed and calm. Magnus looks harder, searching for curiosity, hesitation, _something_ of a reaction to watching Magnus lie on a bed, lost, for five days. There is none and Magnus marvels at it. Alec is exactly the same even if Magnus is not.

He never wanted Alec to see him like this, for anyone to witness this stark reminder of what he is, how non-human, beyond the pretty lights of his magic. He doesn't understand Alec's reaction, or lack of it. He doesn't understand why Alec is still _here_ , however much Magnus loves it, loves him, can't stand the thought of losing him because of this. 

“Don’t you have questions?” The words are torn from him, flowing out from the fear that beats inside his breast. He is so afraid. 

Alec’s eyebrows lift and he blinks. “Well, yes. But I don’t want you to tell me anything that you don’t want to. So I figured if you wanted to explain, you’d do so. I’m not going anywhere. Even if you never talk about what just happened or if it happens again.”

And Magnus has to close his eyes against the storm of emotion roiling inside him. How is it that this man, this _stupid Nephilim_ , who has no knowledge of love and relationships other than the one they currently embarking upon, knows just what to say and do to make him feel accepted and whole? 

Alec wrecks him constantly, breaks him open upon the rocks scattered through Magnus' soul, and he’s spinning out, clinging to the passing driftwood that is Alec’s love. 

While he is lost, again, Alec stays still, no tension in his body, just there, lying with him, in their bed. 

Magnus breathes through the knowledge that he will give this man everything, that he can _trust_ Alec with this part of him, this overwhelming burden of being what he is and the years he's seen and the years to come. 

His words, when they come, are slow and even, and he is old, so old and tired. But this, this is new, this gift that Alec has given him, and he revels in it, letting it bathe him in warmth. 

“There is nothing in me that is not yours, now. I have no secrets from you, only answers to questions that you haven’t yet asked. So speak and I will tell you.” 

His eyes open, glamour down, letting Alec see him true. The way he _always_ has and Alec has never shied away from him, always leaned in instead. The thought wings its way through him, fluttering.

Magnus watches as Alec lifts his hand and brings it to Magnus’ face. It rests there, on his cheek, warm thumb brushing the soft skin next to his eye as they stare at each other. 

“Okay.” Alec’s voice is soft. “Where do you go? What does it feel like? What keeps you alive and safe?”

Magnus is quiet. For all that he wants to give Alec answers, give him everything, he still feels unmoored, exposed in open water, trying to find his oars. But it’s Alec, so he speaks and rows against the current inside him.

“No one knows where we go. Ragnor used to say that occasionally the world just gets too heavy and it rolls in and settles on our chests until we are able to move it back off. It feels like the ocean mostly, sometimes earth and sky. I drift inside myself and time doesn’t really have any meaning there. I always manage to make my way back eventually. Or I have so far, at least. 

“Our magic sustains us. We don’t know exactly how, Ragnor tried to speculate once but even he didn’t want to peer too deeply at it. It happens to all of us, at different times and at varying degrees. It hasn't happened to me for oh, fifty years, maybe? I'm not sure. I don't keep track.” 

Magnus takes a breath. "Warlocks die in one of two ways, darling. We are either killed or we fade. The warlocks I knew when I was young are gone now. One day we just stop hearing from them and we know that they are lost to us and we mourn. We are immortal but not eternal.” 

The words are heavy. Alec is motionless.

Magnus’ voice spins out, weaving a delicate net that lingers in the air. “I am old, Alexander. If each of my days was a pebble, a grain of sand, I would buried up to my neck in them. I think the day that they finally cover me will be the day I let them bury me.” 

He feels Alec’s hand on his waist tighten painfully before loosening. Magnus can feel the effort it takes and he waits before speaking again. 

Finally, Magnus sighs, forcing the words past his lips, even if he doesn’t mind that it’s Alexander hearing them. “After Camille… Ragnor and Catarina came to find me. They told me later that they thought I’d been gone for three months. My magic was almost completely depleted. They coaxed me back and then read me the riot act. 

"Now we all have a system. When we feel ourselves start to slip away, we send fire messages to each other to let them know. It’s how Catarina knew to contact you. I sent two messages; one to let her know what was happening, and then another asking her to let you know as well.” 

He rolls his eyes a bit, “Of course, I didn’t know she’d just tell you to stay at the Institute. I thought she’d make more of an excuse.”

Alec smiles at him. “I’m not sure if she knows how much time I spend here and that I might come back on my own.” Something sparks in his eyes. “Or maybe she does. And this was a test. She sounded upset when I called, but maybe that was a ruse.”

Magnus thinks about that for a minute. “Maybe. You know I haven’t been with anyone in a long time. And none of my lovers have ever seen me in that state before. I’ve never let them.” 

Alec smiles at him then, a quick thing like he’s aware of the honor but doesn’t want to call attention to his pride in receiving it.

Magnus refocuses and lets out a quiet chuckle. “It would fit Catarina’s brand of healing, actually. If you _did_ see me like this and you didn’t run away, then you get to stay.” Now, Magnus swallows, the levity gone. “And if you ran, she would know when to step in.”

Alec moves into his arms and they hold each other. There are soft hands and murmurs for long moments before Magnus pulls back slightly. “May I ask a question?”

“Of course. Always.”

“Why _didn’t_ you run? Why and how are you so calm?” There is still so much bewilderment inside him, next to the bone deep relief. 

Alec’s sigh is long and controlled. “That’s several questions.” Magnus pokes him and Alec flinches and glares a little. They settle again. Magnus waits. 

Alec’s words are just as slow and measured as Magnus’ had been when he starts to speak.

“I think I knew that I liked guys, and only guys, when I was around ten. Shadowhunter training is such that we see each other naked a lot, body modesty doesn’t really exist. And I only found myself looking at boys, when all of my classmates were starting to look at girls. I was twelve when I figured out that I couldn’t be who I was or be _with_ who I wanted to be, ever, unless I was willing to give up everything else I wanted."

Alec moves, restlessly, before sighing. "Izzy… Izzy has always been the perceptive one. And she had her own expectations to deal with. You know our parents. One day she told me to make a box, to put everything aside that kept me from my goals, like she did. 

“So I made myself a box and I put everything inside it and locked it away somewhere. And then I got older and realized that the box kept getting bigger and bigger with everything that I was putting into it and then one day, _I_ was in the box. I stayed there and I probably would have been in that box forever if you hadn’t come along and just casually lifted the top off of it.” 

Alec pauses. Magnus is frozen. “I am not as old or as experienced as you are, but I know the weight of existence, Magnus. I wouldn’t leave just because you feel it too.” 

Magnus buries his head in Alec’s neck and there are hot tears on his cheeks. He shakes in Alec’s arms and they clutch at each other and there are more gentle words whispered in his ears. The storm passes again, slowly, and they ease apart. 

Alec kisses him, lips and mouth soft, so soft. Magnus remembers the scent of sandalwood, the anchor it had been when he was gone, and he thinks that Alec’s body is just a different sort of lodestone now, one he can always use to find his way home. 

Magnus lets his eyes close, weariness washing over him, but it’s clean, grounded in the reality of his body and not away in the ether like before.

He opens them again, though, when Alec speaks again. “Does it scare you? Immortality? What will eventually happen to you?”

Magnus doesn’t let go of Alec, doesn’t lift his head away from Alec’s broad chest. “Yes. Of course. I have seen and forgotten more amazing things than a dozen men could ever experience. Sunrises and sunsets and grass in the wind and people of all colors and sounds and I can’t imagine their loss. But time is heavy and unrelenting.”

Alec, because he is Alec, blunt and brave and bold, asks the question. “If you could keep your magic -- and you could find a way -- would you give up your immortality and be mortal? Know that your life would end one day, in a predictable fashion?” 

The words hover in the air like a heavy rain cloud, a downpour of emotions and decisions coming for Magnus. He hides his face in Alec’s chest, soft hair tickling his nose, another safe harbor where he can collect himself and batten down the hatches for the upcoming storm. 

Alec, again, waits. Who taught this Shadowhunter such patience? Has this always been there and Magnus never noticed? Or did the past few days actually change him, just not as obviously? Made him slow down, wait for the ripples in time to approach him instead of splashing around trying to make them fit his will. 

Magnus doesn’t know, and he’s avoiding Alec’s question. He makes himself speak. “I don’t know. If you’d asked me a week ago, the answer would have been no. But now… I said when we first met that you had awakened something in me and that’s still true. There is a difference between not dying and actually living. I’ve been not-dying for a long time.”

He pauses before continuing, “I love you, Alexander. Our path hasn't always been smooth but we keep finding our way back to each other. Relationships take effort, as a certain someone told me once. And you now know one of my deepest secrets.”

Magnus rises up to look at Alec. His lover’s eyes are deep and fathomless and Magnus lets himself drown in them for a long moment. 

“I’m not sure what decisions I will make in the years to come. But I am here with you now, and I will be here with you in the future, whatever that looks like. You are an anchor, darling, and I will carry you with me wherever, and whenever, I go.” 

Alec is once again quiet and still, looking at him. Finally he reaches up and simply guides Magnus’ head back down to his chest, pressing a soft kiss to the top of Magnus’ head. Alec draws the cool, blue silk sheets up and over them. He laces his fingers through Magnus. Alec’s muscles relax by degrees, and only a few minutes later Magnus feels him slip away into sleep.

Magnus closes his own eyes, letting the rhythm of Alec’s breathing soothe him. This night has been a bubble, rising slowly up through the waves, sheltering them from the waters of reality. Tomorrow, Alec will be a taciturn Shadowhunter and Magnus will be a flamboyant warlock again, with all that comes along with those roles and responsibilities. But tonight, they rest together, under the creaking of the tented sky, the ticking of eternity.


	2. "Renascence" By Edna St. Vincent Millay

From _Renascence and Other Poems,_ 1917

All I could see from where I stood

Was three long mountains and a wood;

I turned and looked another way,

And saw three islands in a bay.

So with my eyes I traced the line

Of the horizon, thin and fine,

Straight around till I was come

Back to where I'd started from;

And all I saw from where I stood

Was three long mountains and a wood.

Over these things I could not see;

These were the things that bounded me;

And I could touch them with my hand,

Almost, I thought, from where I stand.

And all at once things seemed so small

My breath came short, and scarce at all.

But, sure, the sky is big, I said;

Miles and miles above my head;

So here upon my back I'll lie

And look my fill into the sky.

And so I looked, and, after all,

The sky was not so very tall.

The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,

And—sure enough!—I see the top!

The sky, I thought, is not so grand;

I 'most could touch it with my hand!

And reaching up my hand to try,

I screamed to feel it touch the sky.

I screamed, and—lo!—Infinity

Came down and settled over me;

Forced back my scream into my chest,

Bent back my arm upon my breast,

And, pressing of the Undefined

The definition on my mind,

Held up before my eyes a glass

Through which my shrinking sight did pass

Until it seemed I must behold

Immensity made manifold;

Whispered to me a word whose sound

Deafened the air for worlds around,

And brought unmuffled to my ears

The gossiping of friendly spheres,

The creaking of the tented sky,

The ticking of Eternity.

I saw and heard, and knew at last

The How and Why of all things, past,

And present, and forevermore.

The Universe, cleft to the core,

Lay open to my probing sense

That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence

But could not,—nay! But needs must suck

At the great wound, and could not pluck

My lips away till I had drawn

All venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn!

For my omniscience paid I toll

In infinite remorse of soul.

All sin was of my sinning, all

Atoning mine, and mine the gall

Of all regret. Mine was the weight

Of every brooded wrong, the hate

That stood behind each envious thrust,

Mine every greed, mine every lust.

And all the while for every grief,

Each suffering, I craved relief

With individual desire,—

Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire

About a thousand people crawl;

Perished with each,—then mourned for all!

A man was starving in Capri;

He moved his eyes and looked at me;

I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,

And knew his hunger as my own.

I saw at sea a great fog bank

Between two ships that struck and sank;

A thousand screams the heavens smote;

And every scream tore through my throat.

No hurt I did not feel, no death

That was not mine; mine each last breath

That, crying, met an answering cry

From the compassion that was I.

All suffering mine, and mine its rod;

Mine, pity like the pity of God.

Ah, awful weight! Infinity

Pressed down upon the finite Me!

My anguished spirit, like a bird,

Beating against my lips I heard;

Yet lay the weight so close about

There was no room for it without.

And so beneath the weight lay I

And suffered death, but could not die.

Long had I lain thus, craving death,

When quietly the earth beneath

Gave way, and inch by inch, so great

At last had grown the crushing weight,

Into the earth I sank till I

Full six feet under ground did lie,

And sank no more,—there is no weight

Can follow here, however great.

From off my breast I felt it roll,

And as it went my tortured soul

Burst forth and fled in such a gust

That all about me swirled the dust.

Deep in the earth I rested now;

Cool is its hand upon the brow

And soft its breast beneath the head

Of one who is so gladly dead.

And all at once, and over all

The pitying rain began to fall;

I lay and heard each pattering hoof

Upon my lowly, thatched roof,

And seemed to love the sound far more

Than ever I had done before.

For rain it hath a friendly sound

To one who's six feet underground;

And scarce the friendly voice or face:

A grave is such a quiet place.

The rain, I said, is kind to come

And speak to me in my new home.

I would I were alive again

To kiss the fingers of the rain,

To drink into my eyes the shine

Of every slanting silver line,

To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze

From drenched and dripping apple-trees.

For soon the shower will be done,

And then the broad face of the sun

Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth

Until the world with answering mirth

Shakes joyously, and each round drop

Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.

How can I bear it; buried here,

While overhead the sky grows clear

And blue again after the storm?

O, multi-colored, multiform,

Beloved beauty over me,

That I shall never, never see

Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,

That I shall never more behold!

Sleeping your myriad magics through,

Close-sepulchred away from you!

O God, I cried, give me new birth,

And put me back upon the earth!

Upset each cloud's gigantic gourd

And let the heavy rain, down-poured

In one big torrent, set me free,

Washing my grave away from me!

I ceased; and through the breathless hush

That answered me, the far-off rush

Of herald wings came whispering

Like music down the vibrant string

Of my ascending prayer, and—crash!

Before the wild wind's whistling lash

The startled storm-clouds reared on high

And plunged in terror down the sky,

And the big rain in one black wave

Fell from the sky and struck my grave.

I know not how such things can be;

I only know there came to me

A fragrance such as never clings

To aught save happy living things;

A sound as of some joyous elf

Singing sweet songs to please himself,

And, through and over everything,

A sense of glad awakening.

The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,

Whispering to me I could hear;

I felt the rain's cool finger-tips

Brushed tenderly across my lips,

Laid gently on my sealed sight,

And all at once the heavy night

Fell from my eyes and I could see,—

A drenched and dripping apple-tree,

A last long line of silver rain,

A sky grown clear and blue again.

And as I looked a quickening gust

Of wind blew up to me and thrust

Into my face a miracle

Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,—

I know not how such things can be!—

I breathed my soul back into me.

Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I

And hailed the earth with such a cry

As is not heard save from a man

Who has been dead, and lives again.

About the trees my arms I wound;

Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;

I raised my quivering arms on high;

I laughed and laughed into the sky,

Till at my throat a strangling sob

Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb

Sent instant tears into my eyes;

O God, I cried, no dark disguise

Can e'er hereafter hide from me

Thy radiant identity!

Thou canst not move across the grass

But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,

Nor speak, however silently,

But my hushed voice will answer Thee.

I know the path that tells Thy way

Through the cool eve of every day;

God, I can push the grass apart

And lay my finger on Thy heart!

The world stands out on either side

No wider than the heart is wide;

Above the world is stretched the sky,—

No higher than the soul is high.

The heart can push the sea and land

Farther away on either hand;

The soul can split the sky in two,

And let the face of God shine through.

But East and West will pinch the heart

That can not keep them pushed apart;

And he whose soul is flat—the sky

Will cave in on him by and by.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the lovely Amelia as my beta, who let me scream about this while both writing it, and afterwards.
> 
> Oh, and if you don't know the Bernini reference, look him up, he's the most amazing sculptor.


End file.
